SHATNER’S PRICELINE NEGOTIATOR KILLED OFF

Less than a year after William Shatner’s $#!? My Dad Says was killed off after its first, low-rated season, his character, “The Negotiator,” in Priceline commercials, has died a fiery death — literally. Priceline has begun airing a new commercial in which Shatner, who has acted as the company’s iconic frontman for 14 years, is seen hustling passengers off a tour bus that teeters on a bridge where it has just crashed through the railing. With the last passenger off, Shatner, who has informed the passengers that they will no longer have to submit bids to find deals on Priceline, attempts to exit the bus himself, but it topples over and crashes in a fiery explosion with The Negotiator inside. “I’m in grief mode,” Shatner told the Los Angeles Times, noting that it wasn’t the first time he’d played an iconic character who had been killed off. (His Captain Kirk died in 1994’s Star Trek: Generations.) He added, however that whatever Priceline’s management wants, it gets. Although some reports have indicated that Shatner is Priceline’s largest shareholder, CNN said today that he sold all of his shares in the company several years ago.